Ron, I know you've been plagued by issues with this forum, but do you think your ISP might be partially to blame? Have you thought about upgrading to a faster connection? My children are big time gamers and are always complaining about their connection speeds...as far as I'm concerned that telecom industry is the biggest racket going...

Btw, I have the AdBlock+ enabled...the best thing I ever did with regards to internet surfing.

There are numerous sites where you can test your connection speed for both download and upload so you can compare those results with what you're paying for. It will vary some between tests , and between servers it connects to for the tests, but the results should be close to what your isp says it is delivering to you for the price you're paying. If your connection is considerably below advertised, I'd have a chat with the isp about it .One site can be found here http://www.speedtest.net/If your connection speeds are ok the problems are in your pc settings or something in the pc is interfering with your connections.

But where you are, isn't there only one major player, Sasktel? Or am I wrong?

It's a monopoly in every prov (or oligopoly), but sask, as far as I know, is even worse off in terms of no real competition.

No real choice.

It's the same everywhere. Bell/Telus DSL or a choice of Videotron/Rogers/cogeco/Shaw Cable.

No two DSL providers compete and no two cable providers compete. So prices remain over-inflated and if you don't like it, go to the other player who is the same.

The only thing one can choose is the quality of the service, if you are lucky enough to have a small choice in the matter.

Besides, a speed increase will not help with log-in issues. The only thing here could be noise on the line or a very high attenuation which would cause errors (maaaybe what Ron would see on his end) and/or disconnects. But the errors would propagate across all forums if this were the case. Not just this one. So the issue is PC related.

The internet is a very, very, serious entity created solely for commercial gains.Canadian Gardening made me a hardcore separatist

Issues: the forum sometimes takes forever to load or will not load @ all,sometimes I can read the index page but not be able to open a post,sometimes I can read a post but not be able to respond,if I load a picture directly to the forum the viewer must click it twice to see it as it should come up in the first place,If I link a picture from Photobucket only part of it shows up.

I will load one now direct:

Now the same image from photobucket:

Since this is the only forum demonstrating these issues, I think it is fair to conclude the problem is with Canadian Gardening's forum.

BTW, same issues with two computers one running Vista & the other Windows 7 with both using Firefox browser.

I don't know who that beautiful pussy cat belongs to Ron, but I would give it a home in a heartbeat. My type of cat. Gorgeous face and I'm very partial to tabbies.

Apropos my comment on your insect pictures - for these pictures to enlarge to full size I had to R click and open in a new window.

Re the Safari/CG problem - I've had a lot of correspondence with Tim, (the IT guy), my own gurus, (DD and friend), and done all the things we can think of. Nothing worked. Safari is my main browser, but for the forum I use Firefox on the iMac, which is not a problem. However, I have to find something else that works on the iPhone and iPad. I get noteys on them, I can read, but I can't post. Just what happens to Kat. I'm asked for user name, password, etc., which I put in, and I'm immediately asked for it again - and it's never-ending. Tim and I changed passwords many times, but nothing worked. We all gave up!

~BBQ

Zone 5bSouth/Central Ontario

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day ~ Author Unknown

That is a feral cat Brenda. I was putting out table scraps for the critters & saw her watching me from the long grass/weeds next door. I came back in the house & grabbed my Canon S5 with a 1.7 tel-converter attached, cranked up the ISO because it was getting dark & went out for this shot.

We call her Tabitha. She hides when we go outside & only goes to the food when we come back inside.

The half picture for ones linked from an online storage like Photobucket is a quirk of the forum, and they do need right click and view to see the full picture. I notice slow loading of the forum at times and sometimes when I go to post, I have to try twice .. That happens most often if someone else posts either just before I do, or at the same time, in a thread. I have not had any problem staying logged in since the forum changes. Part of the slow loading and stalls could very easily be a bandwidth problem, either CG's allotment to the forum, or with my cable provider since I am on a rural line that may have a lot of subscribers sharing the same bandwidth .. I notice the slow connection most during hours when you could expect peak traffic. It is not an everyday thing.Slowed page loading could be caused by your pc being busy with other things in the background at the time , either from a program you have running , or possibly from some malware running undetected.. An occasional check with Malwarebytes, and keeping your anti-virus updated should make keep that possibility to a minimum.

But where you are, isn't there only one major player, Sasktel? Or am I wrong?

It's a monopoly in every prov (or oligopoly), but sask, as far as I know, is even worse off in terms of no real competition.

No real choice.

It's the same everywhere. Bell/Telus DSL or a choice of Videotron/Rogers/cogeco/Shaw Cable.

No two DSL providers compete and no two cable providers compete. So prices remain over-inflated and if you don't like it, go to the other player who is the same.

The only thing one can choose is the quality of the service, if you are lucky enough to have a small choice in the matter.

We have Shaw here too. We could save by bundling our phone, cable and internet, but my husband doesn't want to switch the phone from Sasktel to Shaw. Shaw has our cable/internet business. Every year, the price goes up and the level of service goes down. The telcoms are really pushing you to buy the extreme speeds...personally, I think they make regular high speed so pokey that you feel you need to upgrade.

I almost always have to load twice from my work 'puter but not on my home one. My suspicion is that the "upgrade" was done and then nothing else was taken care of. Notice we still have "smiley" issues? Tara is only on part time and she is our conduit to IT. I know she has tried getting things done to no avail.

Also, some users (Joy and Sharon) recently upgraded and can no longer get on. Sharon has been trying to get support help and is not having much luck. It seems that this forum is sort of an after thought that might get dealt with if and when IT has time. It doesn't seem to be viewed as an important part of the CG platform. I have no problems with my outdated IE and as long as I don't upgrade I suspect I'll be fine.

Moving this topic to Feedback and notifying Tara....

LynAB, Zone 3A----------------------------------“Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.” ` James Arthur Baldwin"

DonnaZn2SK wrote:..... they make regular high speed so pokey that you feel you need to upgrade.

And just think how slow it is to be on dial-up.Not that I have much choice since I am currently in a "dead zone" but I balk at the idea of being held to a limit of usage and/or a contract. Especially considering one doesn't get re-imbursed for the times when the service is unavailable or under repair.

[I see bick's is really pushing their "crave the crunch" in the lower banner. laf]